July 15 – overcast – rainy but comfortable
Breakfast in the café – couple of eggs and bacon, rice porridge, bao.
Lunch in the cafeteria – ala carte. Tried to watch the BeyondSoft team play basketball but a miscommunication about when and where we were meeting up left me wandering around BeyondSoft and finally heading back over to the Microsoft campus a little more sweaty than I started out.
For dinner we decided to do the tourist thing. We headed over to Pudong and ate at Din Tai Feng. Basically this is a chain of restaurants along the Pacific Rim that specializes in the Xiao Long Bao (a type of juicy dumpling) and noodle soup. The food was good but overpriced. We had 10 pork dumplings, braised tofu with fungus, beef noodle soup and a pork and shrimp wonton soup all for about $30 USD. We can get equal quality and quantity in LA for probably $20 or less. I would say it was some of the best food we have had so far but they certainly take advantage of their reputation.
The restaurant is located in a mall called “Super Brand Mall”. This is your typical western style indoor mall. Very big, lots of shops and restaurants and some really nice views of the Huangpu river and the Bund.
Next we walked around in Pudong near the Pearl Tower and riverline and took some photos of the Bund side of the Huangpu river which is very pretty at night.
We had heard about the sightseeing tunnel so we decided to check it out. After a bit of wandering and asking of directions we found the entrance. Let me say this - sightseeing tunnel = rip off. This is the quintessential tourist attraction if I ever saw one. The price of the tunnel trip comes in a variety of flavors. You can get your basic one way and round trip tickets and then you can add on ala carte items such as an aquarium visit, some bronze exhibition and a few other things. The whole place has a very gaudy, carnival feel to it and I was able to glimpse a little of the aquarium exhibit and I was not impressed. We decided our money was best spent somewhere else. From there we walked over to the very crowded sub-way. BTW – did I mention how crowded it was the entire night. It was crazy. There were so many people – everywhere you went. The subway was not any different and we headed back home. I was drenched by the time we got back to the apartment I think the humidity level had increased significantly in anticipation of the next days rain.